How to sandbox your digital life.
Why I went from unhinged personal content to a private public persona...
This summer I decided to burn the boats, the harbor and the city that built the harbor.
Before you get confused let me explain plainly and then pose a question.
If you want to skip my story, just scroll down to the next line break and that will be the DIY guide to getting started sandboxing your digital life.
Hi I’m Luke. I’ve been a digital nomad since 2016 and have worked in social media since then. Almost 10 years now.
I built a pretty solid personal brand in that time that spanned across LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram and managed to live a pretty cool life traveling the world.
My schtick was unhinged.
I streamed drunk. I roasted influencers live. I openly shared my life, the struggles, the wins and the stories… I managed to build a pretty cool audience and leveraged that into a ghostwriting business, an AI writing course and have worked with some pretty awesome brands and businesses.
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows though.
I got banned over 10x for speaking my mind. I encountered a lot of hate and enjoyed stirring the pot. Ironically I used to make fun of cartoon profile pictures and anon accounts….
So before I continue with my story let me pose a question that I’m still trying to decide for myself regarding balancing my need for a private public persona and also using social media for business…
Anywhoodles…
Last year on my birthday I decided to start slowly shutting down my business.
I gave all my ghostwriting clients away or fired them.
I helped my virtual assistant start his own business and gave him his first few clients so he was taken care of.
I created a plan to slowly phase out spending hours and hours a day on social media…
Essentially I started burning my boats.
Almost a year later as I slowly phased out my business I decided to burn the harbor and the city too! I stumbled into the world of data privacy and cybersecurity and realized the world was changing and that I needed to accept I couldn’t fight for authenticity online anymore.
We can’t control these platforms. We can’t control governments. The truth is that the internet is far less free today than it was 10 years ago….. What you post online can be used against you and well I don’t trust the powers at be to be fair….
(cz they just aren’t and I was not gonna just appease them with fake vanilla thought leadership and keep collecting easy money)
I decided this battle wasn’t for me, and it was time to give up the unhinged schtick…
So I….
Deleted my AI Writing course that helped over 500+ users write with AI.
Deleted all of my LinkedIn posts.
Deleted 10 Gmail accounts.
Deleted my G-Suite setup.
Deleted my Instagram..
Deleted my Threads.
Deleted my WhatsApp.
Deleted my Snapchat.
Deleted my TikToks.
Deleted my Discord.
Deleted my Slack.
Deleted my Facebook.
Deleted my Reddit.
Deleted hundreds of online accounts..
Deleted as much data as I could.
Below is the tool I used to do some of the process… It’s elite and I encountered no issues at all using it. Essentially Redact acts as a browser vs a tool or an extension, so when you log in, it’s like logging in to a browser and thus lowers your risk of being flagged as a bot and getting suspended…
So yeah, I also changed my profile picture to a cartoon and I hide my last name…
I had so many tools, emails and accounts to deleted and remove and it took months to do it fully and request each service to remove my data OR remove it myself…
Now the truth is, many of these services most likely have backups of my data somewhere…
BUT I still believe it was wise to remove what I could and eventually in 5 years, 10 years and 20 years there is no way those backups will be maintained..
Just my personal belief there and I could be wrong….
During this time my income took a hit and I started refusing work.
I did not want to do ghostwriting anymore, LinkedIn influencing, AI writing or any of the things that I’d been doing…
I also stopped spending 8+ hours a day on social media and started touching grass.
In 2025 I’ve spent way more time in the real world and it’s been great.
I’m building a new lane now and am obsessed with private AI, local AI and finding a way to share on social media without sharing personal content or pictures of myself.
I think it’s a great challenge and I’m excited about it…
It was fun being unhinged and I don’t regret it, but I’m embracing this new challenge and leaving the unhinged for real life now hehe…
I will say this has been a journey and I’m still working on deciding fully for myself how I want to sandbox my online presence and my life…
Meaning, how do I separate what I share online and how I build my business from my life in the real world?
I went from posting 3x a day in 2020 to not posting for 3 months this year.
A wild decline.
As I begin posting again and figuring out how to show up online in a new way, I’m navigating what that looks like for me and how I want to do it.
I’m debating creating an AI avatar for videos.
I’m debating sharing photos in real life situations but not of my face (for education on privacy and what to do and not to do)
I’m debating as my poll shared… What do I do with my profile pic and my last name?
So cheers to the journey and I really hope u follow along!
Before I get into the guide, if you have connected with me at any point over the last 10 years I’d love it if you replied to this email or said hello on substack!
How to get started and begin sandboxing your digital life.
So just what is sandboxing?
Basically it’s created an isolated environment to protect yourself.
I wont get too technical but to me, it’s the process of separating your private life and your public social media life.
Here’s where to begin .
Step 1: Audit your social media platforms.
Ask yourself this, if somebody spent 10 minutes stalking your accounts and your business information could they determine the following:
What city you live in and your home address.
Who your friends are and their accounts.
Where your family lives and where they work.
Where you went to school, what you like to eat, where you like to travel.
I could go on but this is a good start. For many of you, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to find all this information about you.
Ask yourself if you are comfortable with strangers knowing all this information.
In 2016 it was a different world and perhaps not that big of a deal.
But in 2025 the world is a very different place.
I personally would not want any stranger knowing the answers to most of these questions…
Step 2: Audit your email addresses / phone numbers / business addresses
This step is quicker… Have you created two separate profiles for yourself? Think of this like chrome profiles.
1 profile should be personal. Your personal email, phone number and home address.
1 profile should be business. Your biz email, phone number, and home address.
So why do this?
Well for starters it’s good business practice and will make your life more organized but more importantly this provides you with a layer of privacy and anonymity.
Separating the two into boxes gives you more privacy.
Step 3: Review your tool stack.
Now apply the first two steps to all the tools you use online.
Do you have tools for business and tools for yourself?
Have you separated them properly and made sure that you aren’t sharing personal information like addresses, banking details and more with public tools?
You are risking data leaks and exposing your information to hackers and the public at large if you have not done so.
….
…………
For now that’s a good starting point.
If you enjoyed this post and you want to follow these 3 steps but feel overwhelmed then you may like a new product I’m working on.
It’s a mini course called: “Sandbox your Digital Life”
It will walk through these 3 steps and share tips, tricks and tools for how to accomplish this goal as easily as possible.
I’m giving first access to all paid subscribers of my Substack and as a special bonus you get 20% off my paid subscription here.
I’ll be adding cool things for paid subs soon and it’s only $69 a year.
Sign up below.